Interface Sign to Serial Port Interface

A standard 6 wire telephone cable meant for a two line phone is used (a 4 wire one will not work) Plug one end into the sign, and one end into the Quick port RJ-12 Jack. Wire the jack into the serial port board as such[3]

MODE TAG and COLORTAG

The key parts of this are the MODE TAG and COLORTAG, there is full documentation available for this[5][6]but here are the pertinent parts.

MODE TAG

a

Message travels right to left.

b

Message remains stationary.

c

Message remains stationary and flashes

d

Auto. Randomly picks an effect for each part of the message, as opposed to the message as a whole.

e

Previous message is pushed up by a new message.

f

Previous message is pushed down by a new message.

g

Previous message is pushed left by a new message.

h

Previous message is pushed right by a new message.

i

New message is wiped over the previous message from bottom to top.

j

New message is wiped over the previous message from top to bottom.

k

New message is wiped over the previous message from right to left.

l

New message is wiped over the previous message from left to right.

m

New message line pushes the bottom line to the top line if 2-line sign.

n

This is followed by a Special Specifier ASCII character which defines one of the Special Modes.

o

Various Modes are called upon to display the message automatically.

p

Previous message is pushed toward the center of the display by the new message.

q

Previous message is pushed outward from the center by the new message.

r

New message is wiped over the previous message in an inward motion.

s

New message is wiped over the previous message in an outward motion.

t

COMPRESSED - Message travels right to left. Characters are approximately one half their normal width. (Only available on certain sign models.)

u

Message flies apart from the center (Alpha 3.0 protocol).

v

Wipe in a clockwise direction (Alpha 3.0 protocol).

COLORTAG

1

Red

2

Green

3

Amber

4

Dim red

5

Dim green

6

Brown

7

Orange

8

Yellow

9

Rainbow 1

A

Rainbow 2

B

Color mix

C

Autocolor

Stock Ticker

The sign can be used for a number of purposes (to display weather forecasts from an RSS feed, to display news feeds as a news ticker) As a proof of concept the following script uses the sign to display a stock ticker that gets it's data from Yahoo! it then colors the prices

GREEN if they are positive/up

and

RED if they are negative/down

for the day.

Here it is in action: (clip from a cell phone so quality is somewhat poor)